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Right. So I'm probably unique in that I'm a very long time Linux user who doesn't do much coding myself. And as such, the Wayland project is the ONLY one that

by jrm4 2y ago

Right. So I'm probably unique in that I'm a very long time Linux user who doesn't do much coding myself. And as such, the Wayland project is the ONLY one that ends up reliably generating the usual e.g. "WELL YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE AN OPINION BECAUSE YOU DONT WORK ON IT YOURSELF" type of retorts. They're really weird because -- on one hand they're technically true. But on the other, they don't really explain why SO MUCH OTHER free/open source software doesn't have the extreme backwards compatibility breakage that this does. Why do we get the free magic of people making great backward compatible code with other projects and so painfully not with this one? To me, THATS the interesting question, and cutting it off with WELL, YOURE NOT DOING IT SO YOUR OPINION DOESNT COUNT just is weirdly unhelpful.

bsder 2y ago
> Why do we get the free magic of people making great backward compatible code with other projects and so painfully not with this one? To me, THATS the interesting question, and cutting it off with WELL, YOURE NOT DOING IT SO YOUR OPINION DOESNT COUNT just is weirdly unhelpful. I can invert your question to: "Why is it that so many people complain so loudly about the X11/Wayland thing and yet so few step in to sling code?" These projects are relatively old. People know what is broken in X11/Wayland; pointing that out doesn't help very much. What isn't always obvious is how to fix what is broken. What's left to do is hard. The easy stuff has been done. The grindy but straightforward stuff has also mostly been done. So, what's left is the stuff that is both a lot of work and not at all straightforward. Given that, what value is there is anyone that isn't bringing code? If the problem needs a mass of work, the only thing valuable to be brought to the table is code. Alternatively, if somehow a brilliant insight got missed by a ton of experienced people, the only thing that can break the logjam and demonstrate superiority is code. I'm no fan of Wayland and think it is very much the wrong direction. However, if I'm not willing to commit time, people or money to fix the situation, how much weight does my opinion really carry at the end of the day?
- jrm4 2y ago
  You literally just did nothing but further my point.
  - bsder 2y ago
    > Why do we get the free magic of people making great backward compatible code with other projects and so painfully not with this one? And I explained what the difference is. These projects are old and difficult. Most open source projects are neither. There are very similar problems with open source domain-specific tools, for example (Musescore, GIMP, FreeCAD, KiCad before CERN decided to fund it, etc.). Musescore has a nice video about how hard fixing it was and how hard it was to get to Version 3 and then trying to get it to Version 4 and how lucky they sometimes had to get: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qct6LKbneKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qct6LKbneKQ
    - jrm4 2y ago
      Again, though, the weirdness exists; you just mentioned a bunch of niche things (presuming that KiCad is niche, I've never heard of it, so probably) X/Wayland ain't like that AT ALL. It's something very central to the OS, which just tends to "get taken care of." Really, my gut is that this is about a slow subconscious shift in culture; in the beginning there were the hippies who shared everything and now GNOME et al want to be 20 devs in a trenchcoat pretending to be Steve Jobs.

by jrm4 2y ago

bsder 2y ago

> Why do we get the free magic of people making great backward compatible code with other projects and so painfully not with this one? To me, THATS the interesting question, and cutting it off with WELL, YOURE NOT DOING IT SO YOUR OPINION DOESNT COUNT just is weirdly unhelpful. I can invert your question to: "Why is it that so many people complain so loudly about the X11/Wayland thing and yet so few step in to sling code?" These projects are relatively old. People know what is broken in X11/Wayland; pointing that out doesn't help very much. What isn't always obvious is how to fix what is broken. What's left to do is hard. The easy stuff has been done. The grindy but straightforward stuff has also mostly been done. So, what's left is the stuff that is both a lot of work and not at all straightforward. Given that, what value is there is anyone that isn't bringing code? If the problem needs a mass of work, the only thing valuable to be brought to the table is code. Alternatively, if somehow a brilliant insight got missed by a ton of experienced people, the only thing that can break the logjam and demonstrate superiority is code. I'm no fan of Wayland and think it is very much the wrong direction. However, if I'm not willing to commit time, people or money to fix the situation, how much weight does my opinion really carry at the end of the day?

jrm4 2y ago
You literally just did nothing but further my point.
- bsder 2y ago
  > Why do we get the free magic of people making great backward compatible code with other projects and so painfully not with this one? And I explained what the difference is. These projects are old and difficult. Most open source projects are neither. There are very similar problems with open source domain-specific tools, for example (Musescore, GIMP, FreeCAD, KiCad before CERN decided to fund it, etc.). Musescore has a nice video about how hard fixing it was and how hard it was to get to Version 3 and then trying to get it to Version 4 and how lucky they sometimes had to get: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qct6LKbneKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qct6LKbneKQ
  - jrm4 2y ago
    Again, though, the weirdness exists; you just mentioned a bunch of niche things (presuming that KiCad is niche, I've never heard of it, so probably) X/Wayland ain't like that AT ALL. It's something very central to the OS, which just tends to "get taken care of." Really, my gut is that this is about a slow subconscious shift in culture; in the beginning there were the hippies who shared everything and now GNOME et al want to be 20 devs in a trenchcoat pretending to be Steve Jobs.